Is the Irish language Dying? - An bhfuil an Ghaeilge a' básadh?

here's another point; i think a lot more people would be interested in seaking irish, if only it were offered in more places. whatta you guys think? would u go learn irish if it were offered somewhere localy eg. schools, night classes etc?
i sure would, but i just don't have the time.
nq.

We shall not cease from exploration
And the end of all our exploring
Will be to arrive where we started
And know the place for the first time.
-T. S. Eliot, 'Little Gidding' V

is mise as an Ghearmáin agus tá cuid mhaith Gaeilge foghlamtha agam féin... The Turas Teanga thing from RTÉ was a good thing which helped me a lot after having done kind of a correspondance school in Irish. But in fact it's quite hard to keep in contact with Irish, living here in Germany. Ach tá an teanga sin go hiontach!! And I pray it will never die!

It's funny. From what I know, I don't have an Irish bone in my body. But from what people tell me, I have the soul of one! I've been in love with the Irish from a very young age, and have always kept the music by my side.
When I chanced upon the name 'Enya', on the Lord of the Rings soundtrack, I had no idea what I was in for. I listened to 'Aníron' so many times that night, that by morning, I knew the words. When I learned she was Irish, I was overjoyed.
And When I finally heard 'Deora Ar Mo Chroí' for the first time, I sang it almost 'til the CD broke! I only started 'really' trying to learn Gaelic a few months ago, and i hope to make it a third language.
Yes, the language is still alive, and it should be spoken more openly! It will never die! We will not let it, will we!

is mise as an Ghearmáin agus tá cuid mhaith Gaeilge foghlamtha agam féin... The Turas Teanga thing from RTÉ was a good thing which helped me a lot after having done kind of a correspondance school in Irish. But in fact it's quite hard to keep in contact with Irish, living here in Germany. Ach tá an teanga sin go hiontach!! And I pray it will never die!

Slán go fóillín

I agree - thakfully, I think it's unlikley. I was at the Oireachtas this week, and looking at how people spoke Irish I don't think it'll ever die. Yea, 'Turas Teanga' is brilliant. We watch it in our Irish class every Thursday.

I'm glad to hear that!!! You know, last week I met a girl saying: "Well, if the Irish language was dying out, who would care? That's just fine." Can you imagine how hardly I was struck by this. I mean, apart from my being a student of linguistics, I feel that every language is part of our culture and the loss of a language means the decrease of cultural identity for everyone of us. Just have a look on what get lost with the dying of Manx and Cornish... I think I can never forgive the girl saying sth like that

By the way: What do you think about the presenter of Turas teanga, isn't she really beautiful?

Wow, a friend of your dad's! That's just great! I knew her name, as I have the tt dvd, cd's and the book here with me. And I saw her presenting the RTÉ 8 o'clock news when I've been to Éire last summer...

Maybe your dad could forward some greetings from a learner of Irish from Germany?! She's really great and I really like her.

I once had a very unusual dream where the UFO aliens finally came forward and made open contact with humans. Trouble was, was that the language they spoke was an archaic form of Irish. The only people in the world that had a prayer of communicating with them were native speakers of Irish.

Overnight the language of science became Irish and crash courses were taking place everywhere because everyone wanted to be able to understand the aliens' technology.

Soon, even international trade was being conducted in Irish. People always commented that it was a very good thing that Irish survived as a language after nearly dying out.

I hope that Gaelic will never die! it´s great language that I listen to with love and interest (only listen) I am not able to speak . I love the gaekic songs. And I also think that for irish people it´s very important to keep it alive.

Roibeard Óg wrote:There will be a lot more Gaelic signs in the North too, in quite a lot of places. I think it's the start of something brilliant.

Ooh! That's good news! One thing I found quite annoying and quite sad was the lack of Gaelic signs in N.Ireland. When going from Beal Feirste to Gaoth Dobhair I did my best to navigate in Gaelic, but until you hit the border it's quite hard as the majority of the signs were in English - the only thing I had to entertain me was that 'London' had been spray-painted out of 'Londonderry' by the locals - too right!